Blog Entry #3

April 25, 2011: Cabo Pierce
It’s tough to build on the awesomeness of the first two days, so we were due for a bit of a letdown. We arrived early this morning at Socorro, and waited off the small town where the navy is based until the officials came aboard to check passports (and drink and eat free stuff). I got my picture taken with one of the soldiers holding a M-16. He was quite obliging, and he made sure not to smile in either of the photos, which made it look more authentic.

We wiled away the time by watching the humpbacks breaching (an almost hourly occurrence here), and were paid a visit by a group of dolphins that soon got bored because we weren’t moving fast enough. This brief interlude wasn’t so brief, so that by the time we’d motored all the way around to the eastern side of Socorro it was already close to noon.

We got in for a dive at Cabo Pierce, a lava flow that’s spilled in to make a long, narrow ridge that steps down to around 120 feet. Conditions were much different from the previous two days, with 40-foot viz and strong — but manageable — currents that whipped this way and that. Add to the equation a 2-3 foot surge, and were it not for the two mantas that came in to play with us for the better part of 30 minutes, it would’ve been a most disappointing dive. A couple guests called the dive early, and those that quickly tired of hanging on to the barnacles were swept off into the blue, where the manta followed. Not the greatest place to be picked up — our boat is currently anchored in a protected bay, but as soon as you turn the corner the wind has whipped the waves into a mild frenzy. So being picked up in that chop isn’t ideal.

The second — and last — dive off the day was also at Cabo Pierce. This time there was no manta to alleviate the conditions, and we instead “hopped” the ridge and swam back along the sheer wall toward the boat in the bay. The dive had its moments — me trying to mate a pair of nudibranchs, a large stingray that swam vertically up the wall, and a pair of enormous green morays — but we were due for a stinker eventually, I guess. We’re staying here the night, diving all day at Cabo Pierce to wait out the heavy winds that have kicked up and are due to subside by Tuesday night, in time to hopefully head over to Roca Partida.